Lifespan Development & Personality - Term Paper Example

The paper also throws light on the major psychological theories concerning one’s physical development, cognitive development as well as one’s social, moral and personality development during childhood. The focus of the paper is to pinpoint the major factors that contribute to one’s development in all these fields of development. Both genetic factors and environmental factors influence the physical development as well as the personality and character of a child. The physical appearance such as eye color, hair color and gender of the child has very much to do with the hereditary influences.

According to Freud the three parts that make up the personality of an individual are the id, the ego and the super ego. While the id is moved by the principles, the ego is governed by reality principles and the super ego tries to satisfy morality principles. Conflicts occur in the personality of an individual due to the inner struggles among these three factors and these conflicts manifest in the form of dreams, neurotic symptoms or defense mechanisms. For Freud there are five distinctive stages through which a person passes through his childhood and each of these is linked to the physical development of the body.

For Freud, it is the libido or sexual urge that dictates terms over one’s behavior and he held that at each stage of the developmental process “a single body part is particularly sensitive to sexual, erotic stimulation” (Stevenson, 1996) and unless these physical needs at each stage of development are fulfilled the child subjects himself to frustration and fixation and this can adversely affect the development of adult personality too. The five psychosexual developmental stages framed by Freud are the oral stage (birth to 18 months), the anal stage (18 months to three years), the phallic stage (3 years to 6 years), latency period (6 years to onset of puberty), and the genital stage (from puberty on).

As the childhood